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A new study and a review of studies out this month just killed the vitamin D idea. Or at least, they really ought to. I imagine there is still research in the pipeline, but I can't imagine there being a lot of new proposals after these:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22336906There was no significant difference in the median serum vitamin D MoM or raw values within the outcome groups (P=141 and P=0.231, respectively) whereas the median PAPP-A MoM, uterine PI MoM and MAP MoM were significantly different (P=0.031, P=0.001 and P<0.0001, respectively)...

In other words, our D levels are average at the end of the first trimester. But other stuff is clearly already broken. So it's not causal.

In other words, *that's the only thing it seems to do*. It doesn't affect rate of onset of anything, it doesn't improve outcomes, but when you check the bloodwork, supplemented women have more vitamin D in the bloodstream.

No one would say this data completely rules out the possibility that supplementing vitamin D might help. But that doesn't mean that it is at all likely to help. It means, instead, that science can't prove a negative. If D were going to be a significant tool in our toolbox, we would see some differences in serum D levels in our population early and raising D levels would lower risk.

Caryn, @carynjrogers, who is not a doctor and who talks about science stuff *way* too much DS Oscar born by emergent C-section at 34 weeks for fetal indicators, due to severe PEDD Bridget born by C-section after water broke at 39 weeks after a healthy pregnancy

What worries me about that one is that better pregnancy outcomes weren't reported as a study finding, in the abstract. A possible difference in frequency between the populations - and the populations were probably too small to have this be statistically significant, given the sample size - got mentioned to the journalist, who wrote all about it in the CNN article. But the science just says that more vitamin D supplementation led to higher levels of serum D.

Caryn, @carynjrogers, who is not a doctor and who talks about science stuff *way* too much DS Oscar born by emergent C-section at 34 weeks for fetal indicators, due to severe PEDD Bridget born by C-section after water broke at 39 weeks after a healthy pregnancy

Yeah, but how many women were in the study? If n=221 is that the total number? And if 78% of the women in the study were vitamin D "insufficient" it doesn't sound like there were very many women in the sufficient group to compare too.

Yep, n=221 high risk patients - IIRC women with a history of PE - and no differences in PE rate btwn normal, mildly deficient and very deficient patients. The idea was that if vitamin D mattered we'd see differences in outcomes in a high risk population.

Big multi center randomized trials are so expensive that what we really need is a good mechanism.

Caryn, @carynjrogers, who is not a doctor and who talks about science stuff *way* too much DS Oscar born by emergent C-section at 34 weeks for fetal indicators, due to severe PEDD Bridget born by C-section after water broke at 39 weeks after a healthy pregnancy